Thursday, March 15, 2012

TNT Thursday - The lazy scrap HST

First off - If you have no idea what the heck TNT is . . . Check out here :) Okay, now we are all on the same page. Let's proceed.

So Today's TNT is sort of funny to me as I hadn't intended to do this particular new thing and the only reason I did it was because I was being lazy and procrastinating. Here's the story :)

So for one of my bees we were asked to make a block with a bunch (like as in 32) of HST's that were all different. So, I cut my white squares from some yardage super speedy like. Then I rumaged through my scrap bags (which I hope to one day upgrade from zip-lock baggies) and rounded up a bunch of small scraps. And then placed those scraps on my cutting mat where they sat. And sat. And sat. Does this happen to anyone else?? Seriously, cutting individual scraps into 3" squares was just not on the top of my "I can't wait to do that" list. Then I had a thought. Why trim them down now when I will trim later????

And from that thought was born the lazy man's (or woman's in this case) scrappy HST. I don't know how often you would need to piece HST's from scraps, but if you do, this really turned out to be quite the time saving technique.

So first I marked my line on all the perfectly cut white squares. And then I just set them on top of my scrappy pieces centering them as best as possible. I didn't even bother to pin them as I had wiggle room :) (And ya, that was super sweet to not have to pin :)

Then I just chain stitched my 1/4" seam on either side of the drawn line. I did all of the rights, and then all of the lefts :) And then just clipped my threads between the blocks.

Then it was onto pressing. I pressed towards the print. I was worried I would have some issues here where things weren't even but nope, they pressed over just fine :)

Now it was just onto trimming. I used my little square ruler and just lined up the diagonal line with the seam of my HST and sliced the first 2 sides and then rotated and once again lined up my diagonal and the 2 1/2" markings and sliced again. And wham!! Perfect HST's. And I have to say, it was so much more fun slicing off some decent size trimmings instead of the little minuscule pieces I normally trim. It made it seem like the trimming step was actually really necessary :)

So there you have it :) The Lazy Scrappy HST :) Now I don't think I would ever do this with yardage or pre-cuts or anything . . . But you better believe the next time I am using scraps for HST's, I will be using this little technique again :)

And just for fun . . . I used these particular HST's (and a few more) to make this bee block :)

So that was my new little try for the week . . . Let's see what you have been up to :) Let the linking commence!!!!!

I do it like this also except before I press it open I trim it up using Quilt In a Day Triangle Square Up Ruler (you end up trimming all 4 sides with 2 cuts of the rotary cutter by lining up on the sewn line) and then I press them open and they are all perfect! It sure does save time by not having to twist and turn those blocks and making those 2 extra cuts.

I am looking forward to meeting you next week in you Petal Pop Class at the Cedar City Quilters Guild Retreat. Anyway, I was looking at your Wacky Irish Chain Quilt and thinking it might be a good project for the thousands of pre-cut squares, with many not so square squares, for humanitarian quilts I inherited. Your TNT for HST will come in very handy for making the not so square squares work without re-cutting the squares themselves. I am grateful I came across you blog in my search, I know I will be back. Thank you for sharing your talents!

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